The President and Michelle Obama’s first kiss, at a Chicago Baskin-Robbins, has been set in stone. To celebrate the momentous occasion, the owners of Chicago’s Dorchester Commons shopping center recently erected a 3000 pound granite marker complete with a bronze plaque to commemorate the First Couple’s very first ice cream flavored kiss. The monument, which took 2 and a half years to create, was installed last week in front of the Baskin-Robbins where the first kiss took place.
The history making kiss is said to have occurred in 1989 when Michelle Obama was still, of course, Michelle Robinson. She was a young Chicago lawyer, and the future President was Editor of the Harvard Law Review .
According to legend, or fact if you are a Democrat, the Obama’s had their first date at the Baskin-Robbins in the shopping center. The memorial commemorates the event with an inscription on the plaque that reads, “ On our first date, I treated her to the finest ice cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate.”
Conservatives are having a field day with this one, gleefully pointing out that Baskin-Robbins was saved by Mitt Romney’s former employer, Bain Capital. In 2005, Bain and 2 other investment firms acquired Baskin-Robbins parent company, the struggling Dunkin’ Brands Incorporated for $2.425 billion. It should be noted that, since the acquisition, Dunkin’ Brands has undergone a complete turn around and is once again a successful business.
On Monday, the popular blog, Political Outcast , was blunt in their contempt for anyone who would turn a life changing private moment into a public event, saying:
“Now, for the average married couple, a first kiss is certainly of no small significance and may sometimes even be celebrated by the couple who shared the kiss. But a kiss is not an event (to the extent that it can be called an event) to which any third-party individual of sound mind would make a memorial.”
As of now, the Obama White House is remaining silent on the memorial. Perhaps the 8.9 percent unemployment in Chicago and a summer full of violent murders in the Windy City is foremost in the President’s mind. Maybe it is the continuing threats by Iran to wipe Israel, and the Jewish people, off the face of the earth that is commanding his attention.
As the 2012 election draws ever nearer, critics of Obama are quick to point out that the President will do everything in his power to distract voters from the dismal American economy and our massive 16 trillion dollar deficit. They claim that this memorial is just another example of the Obama Presidency being all style and no substance.
What is your opinion? Is this a legitimate tribute to an American President or just another example of how the 2012 election has turned into a popularity contest? Do American voters care about the issues and the qualifications of the candidates, or has the Presidency become nothing more than a cult of personality?
